


two eggs, lightly beaten

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, the death is unspecified but a major theme of the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 15:38:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Taking care of each other is just what they do. Right now it's Dan's turn.





	two eggs, lightly beaten

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my @phandomficfests bingo prompt: pancakes. 
> 
> Thank you to Sarah for hand holding and pushing me to actually post something. <3

There are a lot of firsts left in their lives, but they've ticked most of the small ones off the list already. All the ones looking ahead are big things, life things, milestones. 

Most of them will be good. Terrifying, but good. 

This one just... fucking sucks. 

*

Dan is the first one up in the house. 

He's not surprised. He thinks they've all had late nights. He remembers hearing familiar family voices coming out of the master bedroom as he'd crept to the bathroom after Phil finally fell asleep - he remembers how the choked back tears felt wrong to hear. 

The Lester home is always happy. It weighs on him to see it like this. 

It weighs on him to see Phil like this, sat up in bed until three in the morning barely able to breathe for tears. 

It takes so much to make Phil cry. All those years of goading and pressuring him into therapy and telling him to just stop fucking repressing - this isn't how Dan ever wanted him to tap into that kind of release. This isn't Phil choosing to express, it's Phil drowning in something he can't control. 

Dan's got grief of his own right now. This happy home that took him in when he was a bratty, belligerent teenager won't ever feel full again. It makes him hurt for himself. It makes him think how lucky he is. It makes him want to call his own parents, both of them, just to hear their voices. 

His mum had asked if he'd wanted her to come to the service. She hadn't known Phil's parents moved to Isle of Man years back. He wasn't great at telling her things during that whole lot of years. 

He's getting better. He's trying. This is motivation to try. 

It's also his motivation to love the fuck out of Phil. 

*

He lines up ingredients on the kitchen counter. He's only here a collective two or three weeks out of the year, but he knows where the bowls are and there's a warm memory etched into the pattern of the one he picks. 

He's never made these alone before. He's always had Phil by his side, laughing and mixing up measurements and loudly proclaiming, "Oops!" at inopportune moments. 

He cracks an egg into the bowl. He's got a BBC recipe pulled up on his phone. Delia can’t help him; this is an American classic. Just the way Phil likes. 

He's drizzling fresh batter onto the sizzling skillet for the first time when he hears footsteps shuffle in. 

His first wild stray thought is: not Phil, please, not yet. He'll be there for Phil from dawn til dusk and beyond if Phil needs it but Dan wanted this time, doing something productive, still something for Phil, but with his own thoughts before he has to set them aside. 

It's not Phil. It's Cornelia, with a dressing gown wrapped around her and circles under her eyes. Dan reasons that he probably looks about the same. 

"How's he doing?" Dan asks. 

Cornelia goes straight to the coffee pot. She's usually more of a tea person, but they're all relying on whatever keeps them going right now. 

"Awful," she says. "And yours?" 

Dan just shakes his head. "He's a mess. I've never seen him like this before." 

She starts the pot going. The smell will almost surely wake Phil, but the food will be ready by then. 

"It's a terrible thing," Cornelia says, coming to stand beside him. She rests her head on his arm until he lifts it, wrapping it around her shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Dan says. 

He doesn’t know what else to say, but he’s not sure he needs to say anything. He’s sure she feels it too, everything he does.

They stand there, her tucked up against him, until Dan has to reach for the spatula. 

*

The next time he hears footsteps, the coffee is brewed and there's a spread of breakfast food rapidly growing. Cornelia's making bacon and eggs as well, enough to feed the half dozen or so people still in the house and hopefully any that make their way over early in the day. 

Dan's sure there will be people. He's sure the whole day will be full of people, and he won't know most of them. But he'll stay right at Phil's side because that's what this first has taught him - that in moments of crisis, when Phil's heart is broken, he finds the perspective that he needs. 

Cornelia looks to him as they wait to see who it is, to see which one of them needs to break their softened silence and slip into their duties. 

Phil appears in the doorway. Dan turns the fire underneath the burner off and wipes a thick smear of batter off his hand. 

"Think you can eat?" He asks. 

Phil walks over. He leans into Dan, just like Cornelia had. Dan puts an arm around Phil, then both arms, tightly holding. Phil folds into him, fingers curling into fists in Dan’s shirt. He leans on Dan, physically, like he doesn’t even want the energy to hold his own self outright. 

He wants to feed Phil sugar and let Phil cry or talk about that time, that memory, all the times and all the memories, whatever he needs to let out and relive. 

Dan’s not the only one Phil needs to talk and share with. There’s one person still alone upstairs that’s going to to hold both sons close. There’s someone Phil thinks he needs to stay strong for. But in the moments between, Dan’s here to let Phil be weak and take care of him. He wants to soak his warmth and love into Phil's cool skin right now. He wants to soften every bit of this shitty situation that he can. 

"You made me pancakes." Phil says, with the watery ghost of a smile. 

Dan kisses the side of his head. "I made you pancakes."


End file.
